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Friday, December 21, 2012

HOW COME? UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE ROUND OF 16 DRAW SAME AS DRESS REHEARSAL

UEFA chiefs were astonished when the Champions League draw was made on Thursday when they saw which teams were paired together.

In an extraordinary twist, the draw ended up being exactly the same as the fixtures pulled out during the dress rehearsal. Although the order in which the ties were drawn was different, the pairings were identical.

Football statisticians have been arguing over the odds of such an occurrence happening.

fixtures of the rehearsal draw same as the main proper draw (below)

Main draw same with the rehearsal's (above)

The mathematics are complicated
because of rules preventing teams from the same nations competing, or
clubs facing rivals from their own group stage from that year's
tournament. The order in which teams are pulled out also then effects the probability of later fixtures occurring.

Bookmakers would have offered odds of 5,000-1 of the incident occurring, others have suggested the odds are as
extreme as nearly 2,000,000-1. Either way, it's pretty spooky.

Manchester United will hope to take
advantage of chaos at Real Madrid after being drawn against the Spanish
giants in the last 16.

With
Arsenal facing last season's beaten finalists Bayern Munich and Neil
Lennon's Celtic heroes coming up against Juventus it is possible there
will be no British clubs in the quarter-finals for the first time since
1996.

United's classic
tie with Real (the first leg is scheduled for the Bernabeu on February
13) will see the return of Cristiano Ronaldo for the first time since he
quit Old Trafford for £80million in 2009.